Setouchi Tsurezure #7 – Ushima Adventure

Technically, this would be the eighth of my articles for the local Seouchi Times papers, but I’m skipping one for reasons. This time, I wrote about a trip to a nearby island, Ushima, that hosts local kids once a year to get them more interested in the less accessible parts of Yamaguchi life. I mostly took pictures of cats while I was there.

牛島の魅力を満喫

5月19日に息子と一緒に牛島行ってきました。今回は二回目の牛島探訪の参加となりました。光市の企画で市民が牛島に渡って島の事を満喫できます。

船の旅はまだまだ新鮮な経験と感じるので光市室積港で牛島海運有限会社の船「うしま丸」に乗ると本当にワクワクしました。

瀬戸内海のさわやかな景色とそよ風の味わいが好きでなんとなく到着が早く感じました。でもまた今年は牛島の人々の暖かいおもてなしに感動しました。

人口は少なく色々不便で大変そうだと思いますが島の生活も憧れを感じます。大自然は目の前広がる中、独自の歴史も伝統もある事は島の人の誇りだと思います。牛島の牛鬼伝統も全国で知られるほど有名らしいです。

牛島の皆さんが子供達のためのイベントや体験、遊びを用意してくださり感謝でいっぱいでした。個人的には島の自然が一番の魅力でした。街を歩くと野鳥や昆虫、野良猫を観察でき、海でいろんな生き物も近くまで寄ってきます。カメラマンの天国です。

猫たちが特に気になりました。人間の住民よりも多いのでは・・・と思うほどいました。人慣れしている猫や、すぐ逃げる猫もいて訪れた子供たちもワイワイ追いかけまわっていました。私は「ザ・港猫」のごとく力強い猫に気を取られて気づいたら「猫撮影会」になりました・・・

街歩きの後は皆で山散歩に出て牛島の歴史や伝統を学びながら歩きました。近くの天然記念物モクゲンジの木を見ながら丑森明神のお話しも聞き牛島の歴史の長さや自然の豊かさを実感しました。その後訪れた場所には廃校があって子供たちが「怖っ！」と口々に言いながら通りました。確かに何となく寂しく不気味なところかなと思います。子供がいない町は余計にそう思えるのかもしれません。

でも山に入るとすぐに別世界になります。

山道が狭いと空気が綺麗で海が見えなくなります。野鳥のさえずりと葉風のざわざわという音で癒されましたが牛島の山道の厳しさは舐めちゃいけないと深く感じました。

前回と同じくカメラを抱きながらカラスバトを探しました。でも生息地は別の山にあるらしいので残念ながら見えませんでした。牛島は瀬戸内海の雄一なカラスバト生息地なのでいつか絶対みに行きます！と自分に言い聞かせています。

約一時間歩くと平茂海岸にでました。小石の浜であまり海遊びに向いていません。それでも瀬戸内海の島々がきれいに見えるところなので頑張った甲斐がありました。

山を再び越え街に戻ると牛島コミュニティセンターで島の伝統の紙芝居をみて盛り上がり近くの牛島八幡宮で宝探しもしていたら「牛島探訪」が終わりました。

一日の遊びを準備してくれた皆様に本当に感謝でいっぱいです。ですが体力には限界があります。午後の帰りの船で心地よい疲れからウトウトしてしまいました。子供たちは最後の最後まで元気に走りまわっていました。若いっていいですね・・・

Review – The Saint of Bright Doors

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

It seems almost pointless for me to review a book so original, so outside of the norms I know, as this. The awards are numerous, major, and utterly deserved. People are speaking of The Saint of Bright Doors in superlatives and wonder, and having just finished my first read (of which I think there will be many more), I can only agree with what everyone else is saying. And who even cares about my opinion, anyway? But having finished the book, I feel I have to write about it. There are thoughts banging around, and I need to get them out.

There are books that are good because they are fun, or interesting, or thought provoking. People like what they like. Books that are great, though, tend to have more than that—undercurrents that hint at unseen depths, at leviathans swimming in seas of culture and history.

The reason that a children’s book like The Hobbit has gone on to become an enduring classic of Western Literature is that Tolkien rooted it in a thousand years of hero’s journeys and Anglo Saxon sagas. Gene Wolfe’s books are layered with allusions and histories of Greece and Rome, religions pagan and Catholic, pushing them beyond mere adventure and space opera. Le Guin wove stories of wizards and dragons from primordial myths and basic human truths.

Vajra Chandrasekera has written a Great book; done something that echoes those feats, with a weft of modern post-colonial literature and woof of lit-in-the-age-of-Covid, but the roots and undercurrents seem deep and… Unknown to me. This, I think, is what makes this book in particular, right now, so worth rereading and excavating. For me, anyway. This book breathes the air of an unknown land even as it echoes more familiar Kafka-esque paranoia and surreality, and that air is still fresh to me. I feel that I recognize some of the pieces Chandrasekera used in assembling this mosaic, but some are still in colors I cannot name.

I want to learn those names. I want to know if the “invisiblelaws and powers” are his, or if they belong to a history and tradition I am simply ignorant of. This book is a signpost toward a place I have never been, and I think I want to follow it.

The Jason Ogg Theory of Luck

I’m a lucky guy, all in all. Bad things have happened in my life, but I’ve made it through them more or less intact. I have a loving, healthy family. A career that is basically ideal. And through it all, I’ve been able to experience the world in ways I never dreamed of.

I sometimes feel like I’m so lucky it’s kind of scary. Because luck can turn on you in an instant, can’t it? All this can disappear like a tears in the rain (IYKYN). That thought has haunted me in a very real way, and I think I’ve developed a weird psychological tick because of it.

The thing that made me understand my own way of interacting with life’s vicissitudes was a bit in one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, about the blacksmith Jason Ogg. Because of the fundamental importance of a skilled blacksmith, and the magical nature of the Discworld, Jason Ogg can shoe anything. Donkeys, unicorns, even Death’s pale horse. But to have the power to shoe anything that comes to you for shoeing, you have to shoe anything that comes. If Death comes to you to shoe his horse, you shoe his horse. If your drunk friends bring an ant for shoeing as a joke, you shoe the ant. If you deny the request to use a power, you lose the power.

A blessing must be used, or you lose it. That is how I have come to interact with what I view as my luck. In practical terms, that means that if a chance that seems “lucky” comes along, I take it.

When someone emailed me years ago asking if I was interested in coming to Japan to teach English, I wasn’t, actually. But it seemed like a lucky chance, so I took it. And now I have lived in Japan, happily, for two decades.

When my barber asked if I wanted to go out to dinner with him and his niece, whom I had never met, I went. I married his niece a year later.

When my wife and I went for a walk one day in the neighborhood and saw a house with a for sale sign in the window, we took a tour and made an offer that day because it felt perfect to me. We’ve lived in it for almost 11 years now, and never plan to move.

This tendency of mine, to say “yes” to pretty much every major opportunity that comes down the line has also guided my career. It’s how I survived the bankruptcy of the English school I first worked at, it’s how I became a semi-regular TV guest, and it’s now guiding my literary translation work.

As if to reinforce the idea, the lucky chances keep coming, and I’ve not had to say “no” to any yet. That idea, that I have not had to say no, is perhaps the other half of my theory of luck. Because, if you want to say yes to opportunities, you need to be able to take them. You need skills, flexibility, time, attitude… You need to be open and prepared. Which is why I study things almost constantly, because you never know when you’ll need to know, oh, trends in the Japanese mystery publishing industry.

Anyway. I was just thinking about this, because sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had said “no” to some of the things that have come along. But all in all, I’m glad I didn’t.

Setouchi Tsurezure #6 – Spring is Come

My sixth column for the local Setouchi Times newspaper was about my encounter with spring at a local park. It was one of my favorites, mostly for the pictures. I spotted a Longtailed Tit couple building a nest from spiderweb and moss, and while I was shooting pictures of them, a tanuki came waddling by. It was nice.

冠梅園で春がやって来る

ライオン　ジミー

先日、大好きな冠総合公園の梅林へお散歩に行ってきました。梅の花がすでに散り、空気がまだまだ冷えていました。それでも自然界の春の賑やかな空気をふんわりと感じることができました。野鳥のさえずりを聞きながら山を登って、瀬戸内海の眺めを味わっていると、まだ葉の無い木に小さな鳥の動きに気を取られました。見るとエナガでした。

エナガは小さくて丸くて、とてもかわいい小鳥です。外を歩く度にいつも探しています。今回のエナガは同じ方向へ行ったり来たりして、くちばしに何かを咥えている姿を見せてくれました。

それで気づきました。春の巣作りだ！

そっと、そっと追いかけてみると梅の木の股で蜘蛛の糸と苔でエナガの夫婦が一生懸命巣を作っていました。幸いにもカメラを持っていたので写真も撮れました。

「親が子供の為に頑張って安全な家を作るのは大変だな」と思いながら見守っていました。

しばらくすると近くの道に大きな茶色の何かが通り過ぎました。

「今度はなに？」と訝りながらまたそっと、そっと追いかけました。

するとタヌキさんがおそらく小川でエサを探したあとの帰り道でした。

僕の事を完全に無視して近くの植木をクンクンしながらのんびり歩いていました。その丸い背中を見ると「ふっ」と笑って、また写真をいっぱい撮らせてもらいました。

これも新鮮な経験でありながら、なんとなく懐かしい場面でもありました。

僕の実家があるカンザス州では毎日のように野生動物と触れ合えました。でも日本に来て以降は滅多にない事でした。リスやウサギ、鹿、アライグマなどの存在がない光市はある意味で少し寂しいと思うこともありますが、あの日やっぱり「懐かしい動物がここにもいるんだ」と感じました。

小さな癒しとして有難いひと時でした。

これから自然界はますます元気になると思います。動物も、植物も動きだして、段々と生気あふれる世界に戻ります。その日々の変化を見ると時間の流れと季節の移り変わりをもっと深く感じます。人間が自然界から離れて暮らすようになった現在ではそれが忘れられがちの事でもありますが忘れちゃいけない事だと思います。

人間も、自然界に縁がまだまだあります。

皆さん是非外に出て大自然が春を迎えている事を観察してみてください。

きっと僕みたいに癒しを見つけることができると思います。

20 Years

I stepped off the plane in Osaka on June 9, 2004. Though I didn’t know it yet, I was home.

A street scene in Japan. — The view out my window in Ube, Yamaguchi, on June 10, 2004. My first morning in Japan.

My memories of that first day are blurry. I remember buying my first bottle of “Milk Tea,” syrupy sweet and delightful, at an airport kiosk. Riding the shinkansen for the first time, transferring to the local line, and being terrified I would miss my stop in Ube. Jetlag made that first day a hard one, but I awoke the next morning in JAPAN! It was pretty wild.

The big Shidax (now gone) down the road from my apartment made things easier…

My first Karaoke in Japan. Can’t you feel the passion?

It’s hard to really believe that I’ve lived in Japan for 20 years. I only lived in Kansas, where I was born and raised, for 18. I left the United States for good at 24 (spent a bit of time in Russia and Germany before I came to Japan). I see no reason for me to leave Japan in the future, so it really does seem that this is where my bones will rest.

Looking back on why that might be, I can only say that it feels right. I settled into Japan relatively easily, after the first couple of years. The obvious influence is my marriage (17 years and counting) but even the pace of life and basic values of Japan suited me quickly. Or, perhaps I should say this part of Japan, because Osaka and Tokyo are not for me.

The truly surreal thing is, coming to Japan was never even on my radar as a young man. Apart from a brief anime phase in college, I was not a big otaku or whatever. If anything, I was hoping to live in Europe, given my MA in German Language/Literature. But I was never much a one for plans. I was always the type who took what chances came my way, and the chance to visit Japan came my way.

I’m glad it happened. It’s a nice life for me, and has brought me a wonderful family to boot.

I’m lucky, and grateful.

But man. 20 years. That’s a long time, isn’t it?